Recent News and Articles on the Keywords: wrestling + violence + linked  Related to the article below (Last Update: 8/7/2008)

Rejected: ads too tough for Amnesty Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - "In particular, they depicted violence linked to sporting events or equipment that could be offensive to some or confusing in its message. ... special article The Statesman, India - Jul 31, 2008 Elizabeth Newson concluded that there is a definite link between violence portrayed in video films and TV and aggression among youngsters. ... Greetings from Tijuana San Diego Reader, CA - Law enforcement officials and journalists, politicians and peasants have been gunned down in the wave of violence." "What affects one side affects the other ... Melbourne Herald Sun Storm stunned by inaction on Nathan Brown Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia - Jul 27, 2008 Not only did Brown blame it all on the Storm's wrestling techniques, he admitted he instructed his players to respond with violence, and called on every ... Mom: System, Doctors Facilitated Son's Prescription Drug Death Tampa Tribune, FL - Aug 1, 2008 Some addicts turn to violence to support their habits, contributing to a series of local drugstore holdups. Three suspects were arrested in four Pinellas ... Bright Lights Film Journal Men in Women-in-Prison Bright Lights Film Journal - Aug 1, 2008 The violence and aural volume of Grear's response may be butch, but the content is more questionable. In fact, Grear is parroting one of the two great ... New Haven Independent ?Independent? Journalist Perseveres New Haven Independent,  USA - Jul 11, 2008 His staffers wrestled him away from the strangers, who were armed and trying to grab him. Ndzana said he learned later that his drink had been drugged. ... ChristianityToday.com Christianity Fever ChristianityToday.com, IL - Jul 11, 2008 By Stacey Bieler and Carol Lee Hamrin For more than 100 years, China's tiny cultural elite has wrestled with the role of Christianity in society. ... See Under: Homeland Jewish Theatre, Israel - Jul 14, 2008 Within America?s identity-based politics?a culture that prizes ?authentic? voices and in which wrestling with difficult topics such as the Holocaust or the ... State Constitutionality and Adequacy: Signposts of Concern on ... RedOrbit, TX - Jul 9, 2008 105 As states wrestle with the issue of whether or not to provide school vouchers as a way to meet the needs of "individual" students, perhaps those ...

Watching TV wrestling linked to date violence

High-school boys, and girls in particular, who regularly watch pro wrestling television shows seem to be more likely than non-viewers to get into fights with their partners when they're on dates, new research suggests.

Parents who watch wrestling may not feel it has any effect on themselves and so they don't think it affects their children, but "high school children are very much in a rapid developmental process," study co-author Dr. Robert H. DuRant told Reuters Health.

"They are affected by this," he said, citing the extreme violence involved in television wrestling as well as the blatant use of sexuality, vulgar language and derogatory terms for women.

DuRant and his team at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, followed a random sample of 2,228 students from all of the public high schools in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County, North Carolina for a six- to seven-month period.

The students completed a questionnaire that asked about various risk behaviors, such as if they had recently carried a weapon, whether they had been involved in a physical fight during the previous year and if they had initiated the fight or been a victim. They were also asked how often they had watched pro wrestling during the past two weeks.

The investigators found that the more frequently the students watched television wrestling, the more frequently they reported initiating or being the victim of a date fight. Also, the researchers note in their report in the journal Pediatrics, the association between television wrestling and date-fight perpetration was particularly strong for girls.

Specifically, boys and girls who watched wrestling just once during a two-week period were 10 percent and 12 percent more likely, respectively, to be involved in date fighting than were their peers who had not watched any wrestling. Boys who watched it six times in two weeks were 77 percent more likely to perpetrate date fighting, while girls who watched it six times were 170 percent more likely to do so.

Girls who more frequently watched television wrestling were also more likely to report carrying a knife at school, carrying a gun, and fighting than were their peer.

The specific reason for the greater association between television wrestling and date fighting among females is unknown, but DuRant and his colleagues speculate that it may be because of desensitization among boys. Or, girls who already engage in violence may simply prefer to watch wrestling or other programming that reinforces their behavior, which may also lead them to fight and carry weapons more frequently than their peers.

"The bottom line is that adolescents are affected by what they are exposed to," DuRant said in a university statement.

"It's easy for parents to think that their adolescent children are just little adults, but they aren't," DuRant told Reuters Health. "We do know their brains are still growing," he said. "Exposing children and adolescents to extreme violence in the media can have an influence on them."